Kids Prefer Cheese

Monday, March 19, 2018

1. Social activism is "good for you." Making me wonder (A) if this is selection, which seems likely, and (B) if being "active" in Christian or pro-life organizations is seen by college admissions drones as being "good." If this is just virtue-signalling to appeal to the ideological biases of a bunch of lefties who couldn't get real jobs, I'm not very impressed.

4. Kim Kardashian has transcended corporeal form and has evolved into pure irony with no trace of self-awareness. Unless it is ironic on purpose, in which case well played, ma'am. "Swipe to download the 'Women's Empowerment Pack'" of "Kimojis" for $2.50. The Onion should just close down. There is nothing left to say, nothing left to do.

Monday, March 05, 2018

2. You know that thing where a cat is asleep, or just sitting, and then apparently gets a message from the space-alien-cat mother ship: "YOU ARE IN THE WRONG ROOM! RUN!" Well, that seems to have happened to this guy, in the Newark airport. When a cat does it, people say "How cute!" That's not how it work out for our human.

5. For the people upset about the sheriff's deputies who may have stayed outside of Parkland: First, it could have been a hostage situation. It's hard to get info. Police are not obliged to commit suicide, pistol against AR-15. Second, and more importantly, police have no legal obligation to protect. Warren vs. DC, 1981 settled that. You might want to read this.

18. She relentlessly pursued him. Are adult women such mental and moral infants that they can't be held responsible for ANYTHING? Harvey Weinstein is not the same as Bill Clinton, at least regarding l'affaire Lewinsky.

6. A year ago, my friend John Hasnas wrote this. He has gotten righter and righter over time. Trump is NOT antidemocratic, but is rather the apotheosis of the democratic, populist ideal. No elites, no experts, no truth, except what the majority decides.

17. It's against the law for guns to go to jihadists. And yet they go. A lot of them. We should be optimistic, though, about our ability to keep guns from going to depressed and angry young men. Because....wait, why?

6. As tempting as a "Scooby Doo" ending would be....It's unlikely. But wouldn't it be great if, as Trump
is being led away, the police pull off the mask. It's
Bill Clinton! He had thought Hillary would still win,
and he could date porn stars in the meantime. After
he won, he cooked up the Russia collusion thing as
a distraction, so he could date MORE porn stars,
and serve again as President. He shouts back, "And
I'd have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for
those meddling kids and their FBI!"
(WIth thanks to Brendan Nyhan)

12. Wow. The fact is that "reduce the deficit" is ONLY a "Republican goal" when they are out of power. When Republicans are IN power, their primary goal seems to be "spend money as if you won the lottery." This is a remarkably empirically out-of-touch argument, here.

The Grand Lagniappe: Even Politico says, "HRC Needs to Move On..." If Hillary Clinton were reincarnated as a dog....

Monday, February 05, 2018

(Sorry to miss last week.... I was hanging out with Marie Newhouse at Surrey U

1. Can competition stem corruption? Seems a little simplistic. In some ways corruption is a way of reducing competition, by buying favors. I have argued that corruption can make the system more efficient....Tullock was first to argue that from an economic perspective.

9. I don't know about this. I'm willing to believe that California has the highest poverty rate, because if you subsidize something you get more of it. And CA has a great climate and is kind to panhandlers. But is it really true that people would be better off if they were forced to work? Isn't that just a different take on the paternalism the article decries in others?

12. Why it's so hard to figure out what college actually costs: Because it's more like medical services (highly protected and noncompetitive) than it is like a market (where you get information because competition forces providers to give out information).

Saturday, January 20, 2018

I would say there are two primary ways of judging impact in academic political economy: (1) number of contributions with >= 1,000 cites, and (2) h-index.

Prof. Grier has a 1,000 cite piece; I do not. And the h-indexes are essentially tied. AND the "since 2013" h-index is not even close. The difference between 21 and 18 is NOT "3," in any linear sense. He is running away with this, if you take the thing seriously. I have little prospect of breaking 1,000 with anything any time soon. And he has several papers that were published in very visible places and will likely soon hit the post-2013 h-index.

I guess that I'd go a different way, though. Two knuckleheads who shared an office in a basement 1983-4, who both failed their econ prelims (and deserved to) EACH now have an h-index over 30. In some larger sense, an h-index over 30 is at least moderately bad-ass. Jim may not have been completely astonished at how Angus turned out, but I know Herb was surprised I ever got a job at all. So, here's to Angus and me, for surprising everyone by not being in jail!

Front of the stone contains an electronic display of your cites, alone or in comparison to any rivals you desire. Inside the stone a device running a python script to scrape the relevant info from Google Scholar (oh and a cell / wifi connection). Back of the stone is a solar panel to power the various gizmos.

Given my intimate knowledge of the arrogance and insecurity of academics, this will sell like the proverbial hotcakes. Looking for a couple angel investors to finance a first round.

Phone call for @PMARCA!!!!! We can even put the word "blockchain" in the prospectus to drive the crowd into a frenzy.